"I think we can all agree that the CEO ought to be paid more than the average employee at a firm. Otherwise, who'd want the job? But things do appear to be tilted pretty far out of whack."
I volunteer to be the CEO of any major corporation for free. Heck, I will pay for the priveledge. The knowledge and connections I would build in the C-suite there would translate into super pay somewhere else in the future.

"Was Otellini's performance in 2012 worth 190 average engineers?
Don't forget, Otellini is famously not even an engineer (the first Intel CEO to hold that distinction)"
What a narrow tunnel vision
"Don't forget, Otellini is famously not even an engineer (the first Intel CEO to hold that distinction). He's an MBA. He's paid by Intel's shareholders to protect and grow their investment. Investors don't necessarily care about Intel's industry leading process technology, tri-gates, 22-nm, or Sandy Bridge. They care more about the value of their investment. Just for the sake of discussion, Intel's stock price closed 2011 at $24.25 and was down to $20.62 by the end of 2012."
Maybe Intel should hire NVDA CEO - the guy has an engineering degree but seems to lack people skills calling TSMC (NVDA's manufacturing partner) 20nm process absolutely worthless - yeah and check out NVDA stock price performance....
and he seems to care about Intels TriGates and manufacturing capabilities...
"Nvidia Wants to Make its Chips Inside Intel's Factories"

As I recall Paul Otellini more than doubled Intel's sales while maintaining a very healthy bottom line -- and increasing Intel's market share and process technology lead. Hardly a bad record.
The only criticism I might have is that he realized the ultimate impact of smart phones & tablets on the PC industry a couple of years later than he should have. To his credit, the threat was finally recognized and steps taken to address it. Was it just in time or too little too late? We don't know yet.
Discussion of MBA vs Engineer is ludicrous - by the time any individual becomes CEO of a major multinational corporation they have been organizational managers and business decision makers much longer than they ever were contributing engineers, accountants, etc.
My guess is that Paul Otellini knows more about 22nm process technology and CPU architecture than 99% of the readers of this blog... Does that make him a good CEO or a bad one?
Finally - if the question is could Intel get the same quality CEO for $1M/year, probably not. $10M/year, maybe. Even in the CEO position the free market works. If another company was willing to pay that $1M CEO $5M - why would he stay at Intel?
BTW - If you owned a business, would you hesitate to pay 0.03% of your sales to get the best person possible to run it for you???

I hear that average pay raise for rank and file employee is 1% this year, which is normally 2-2.5%. So a base salary raise of 9% for an outgoing failed CEO and t-comp of 19M doesn't make sense. Just another evidence that the "suits" have come to roost at Intel and are simply raiding the company.

Intel had its fling with an Economist / MBA as CEO and has had a dismal outcome. Its time to "GET SMART", preferably someone with the technical confidence ( backed by track rcoord ) to marshal Intel's fast eroding Fab lead into winning new architectures.

There are lots of arguments in favor of high CEO salaries, none of which I buy.
One is that if you DON'T pay $19 million, the CEO will go somewhere else where he/she will be paid such an amount.
But hang on, Otellini is retiring early!!!!

First let me say that I'd be the last to grumble about our six-figure salaries. And I also think that the owner of a company ought to be able to pay the employers whatever he wants. But that's the problem. I'm an owner of Intel, and my ability to influence pay is very weak. I would not pay my employee $19m and I don't believe I get better performance for $19m than I would for $1m. I'd vote to put the bulk of that in dividends.

In conjunction with unveiling of EE Times’ Silicon 60 list, journalist & Silicon 60 researcher Peter Clarke hosts a conversation on startups in the electronics industry. One of Silicon Valley's great contributions to the world has been the demonstration of how the application of entrepreneurship and venture capital to electronics and semiconductor hardware can create wealth with developments in semiconductors, displays, design automation, MEMS and across the breadth of hardware developments. But in recent years concerns have been raised that traditional venture capital has turned its back on hardware-related startups in favor of software and Internet applications and services. Panelists from incubators join Peter Clarke in debate.